The Wheel and The Butterfly
Part 18 Dan, Pinkie, & Ash Vs. Deadites: Chapter 167: Dan & Pinkie Vs. More Comic Book References
-ooooooo-
“Awww…” Pinkie said in an adoring tone as she glanced towards the backseat.
Dan also took a moment to look behind him and let out an irritated snarl. “Stop showing family affection towards Chris right now or I’ll pull this car over!” he shouted at Elle.
“You had your chance!” Elle snapped back.
Dan grit his teeth. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it and rain holy vengeance all over that back seat!”
“Dan, we’re already pulled over,” Chris pointed out.
“Oh, right…” Dan’s head snapped forward as he shot off a glare and a grumble in the direction of the greenery. He turned on his blinker and craned his head back to stare out the back window before pulling out in traffic. “There!” Dan said. “Now knock it off before I pull over and start raining down holy vengeance back there!”
Giggling to herself, Elle retracted her hand.
Dan took a moment to collect himself then let out another in a long line of sighs. “So, did Applejack and Ashley decide to scout ahead?”
Elle shook her head. “Not after I reminded them there was a real possibility they’d get shot.”
Dan’s face tightened. “Well, why’d you have to remind them? We don’t need them!”
Pinkie’s smile soured into a tight frown as she tossed Dan a wayward glance that went unnoticed.
Elle rolled her eyes. “Dad, I know you don’t like Ash—”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Dan growled.
“— but he has dealt with this specific brand of evil before.”
Pinkie smile returned as she placed a hand on Dan’s thigh. “Plus we get Applejack as a bonus and she looks like she’s strong enough to throw some of the demon-possessed people into the sun.”
“Fine, guess they’ll just have to wait for team super-power… and Chris.”
Chris stared forward in irritation. “Thanks for including me. Also, I think we should probably take ‘throwing the possessed into the sun’ off the table.”
“What!? Why!?” Dan replied.
“Well, for starters, we know Elise falls into that category, and I’d rather not see my wife tossed into the sun,” Chris replied dryly.
Pinkie turned towards Chris with a smile. “No one is thinking Elise should be thrown into the sun!”
“I am,” Dan clarified, without missing a beat.
“DaaaaAAaaaad!” Elle warbled in a chastising tone.
Dan sighed. “I just meant in general… Not just because of recent events.” Dan tossed a hand up into the air. “I mean, we’ve all thought about throwing Elise into the sun at one time or another, right?”
“…”
Dan’s face tightened. “Right?!”
Pinkie gave Dan an unsure smile. “I’m thinking that’s a big ‘no’ from everyone.”
Dan’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Okay, but I think we’re missing a vital piece of information for the sake of this conversation.”
-~ooo~-
“What! No!” Applejack said in disbelief from the red vinyl booth she was sitting in. “Ah can’t toss people into the sun!”
“C’mon!” Dan whined. “Ashley keeps saying they can’t be saved, so what’s the big deal!” Dan motioned to Ash, who sat opposite Applejack at a square wooden table in his own bench seat, a half-eaten burger and some picked-at fries on a tray sitting in front of him.
“Ah mean, I physically can’t throw them into the sun!”
Dan let out a displeased grunt as he collapsed into the booth opposite Applejack. “Then what good are you?” he posed in an irritable tone.
Applejack narrowed her eyes. “Ah’m plenty strong enough to throw you through the front of the restaurant and into the parkin’ lot, for starters.”
“I’m onboard with this plan,” Ash piped up.
Dan turned and snarled at the man he had sat next to. “No one asked you!”
Hovering around the Burgerphile booth, Pinkie, Elle, and Chris milled about as Dan engaged Applejack in what was a serious conversation about breaking through the atmosphere and space travel, in his mind at least. Other people sat at their tables eating burgers, fries, and other fast-food fare as they tossed the oddball group equally as odd looks.
“No, that’s fine,” Chris said in an irritated tone. “Let’s just waste more time while Elise remains possessed and the world counts down to the apocalypse.”
Dan shot Chris a scrutinizing look. “Are you honestly trying to tell me you don’t want to fill your face with a burger, some fries, and an oil barrel full of chocolate shake?”
Chris folded his arms across his chest. “They don’t serve shakes in 42 gallon metal drums, Dan! I’ve checked… Many times.” He pursed his lips slightly. “Also, I’ll get in line,” he said before making a quick escape towards the front counter.
“NO cheese!” Dan yelled after Chris.
“I know. I know,” Chris replied.
Dan got up from his seat and quickly pivoted around the end of the bench seat to sit in an empty booth. He motioned for Pinkie and Elle to sit across from him. Pinkie piled in followed by Elle, the two plopping themselves down on the booth with cheerfulness that stood in stark contrast the situation the group was heading towards.
“Okay, Elle,” Dan said, “real talk time.”
Elle nodded. “Let me get into the ‘real talk time’ position!” Elle leaned forward, resting her elbows on the tale. Her finger intertwined with her index fingers resting against her chin which pointed up at her button nose. “Okay…” she titled her fingers forward to point at Dan. “Aaaaand go!”
Dan took a moment to fire off another ‘this is clearly your genes and/or influence fault’ glare at Pinkie.
Pinkie once again let out a short ‘Heh’ with a sheepish smile and shrugged.
Dan sighed and turned to look at Elle. “Okay, Elle. I know you have this whole Rachel Summers thing going.”
“Wait… Who?” Pinkie asked.
Dan turned his head slightly, his forehead tightened leaving deep, irritated groves on his forehead. “Future alternative timeline daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey-Summers!?”
“… You mean like a girl-Cable?”
“You pressed the ‘Cable’ button!” Chris shouted from in front of a cashier, interrupting what was clearly a large order. “Ya shouldana done that….”
“Uh, Chris?” Pinkie shouted across the restaurant. “What are you getting? I didn’t tell you what I wanted.”
“That’s okay! I’m ordering the menu!”
“Uh… Okay?” Pinkie shot back. “I mean, there’s a lot of stuff on it, how do you know what I want specifically?”
“The ENTIRE menu!” Chris clarified. “I get hungry when I’m nervous—”
Dan rolled his eyes. “Also, when it’s daytime or nighttime!”
“Okay, well Elise has been possessed plus the world might end!” Chris countered. “This might be my only opportunity to do this! Especially if ‘day’ and ‘night’ are destroyed forever.”
Most every pair of eyes in the restaurant were now on Chris now as he simply returned to placing his order.
Dan seemed to ponder Chris’s words for a moment. “Hey, Ashley… Could these Deadites actually destroy day and night?”
Wearing a scowl on his face. Ash seemed to consider the question briefly. “They’re probably more of an ‘eternal night’ type… though I’ve never known the time of day to matter all that much to them.” Ash focused his scowl on Dan. “Also, you guys are pretty shitty at the whole ‘keeping a low profile’, thing.”
Dan turned with an expression every bit as irritated as Ash’s. “Oh, who cares!” Dan said throwing his hands up in the air. “The world is at stake… I guess… What exactly is going to happen?”
“Uh… the dead will rise from their graves to prey upon the living? Earth itself turns into a terrifying hellscape of skeletons and rotten corpses that attack anyone they get their bony and rotting hands on? I mean, I’m sure you’ve thrown on at least one zombie flick in your lifetime.”
Pinkie chuckled. “Actually, I think Zombie movies might be the source of Dan’s power…”
“Well, this would be worse,” Ash continued. “Imagine Zombies that can think and will go out of their way to make your life extra miserable before they end it… this usually involves being assaulted verbally.”
Dan tapped at a cheek as he thought about this. “… And ground zero would be downtown L.A.?” He chuckled. “I wonder if anyone would be able to tell the difference.”
Pinkie’s face tightened as she leaned across the table and swatted Dan upside the head.
“Ow!” Dan exclaimed as he reached a hand up to the assaulted area. “I’m just suggesting it might not be as bad as it all sounds.”
“Believe me, it’s not,” Ash said. “It’s much more f*@#ed up than I’m describing.”
Dan glanced up at the ceiling and placed his hands in front of him defensively. “All I’m saying is maybe the world needs a good apocalyptic event every now and again to keep everyone on their toes. Who knows? It might be fun.”
Elle glared across the table. “I can assure you, past-Dad,” she said in a growl, “living in an apocalyptic world is anything but fun!” Elle let out a loud groan. “I pretty much went my entire childhood without having gelato, frozen yogurt, or even ice cream!”
Dan’s face contorted into an irate scowl. “Sorry, future-kinda-not-really-my-daughter. Gee, imagine never being able to eat those things.”
Pinkie leaned in close to Elle and whispered in her ear using her left hand to block the sound from Dan’s direction. “Maybe pick an example that doesn’t use a dairy product.”
“Oh, right…” Elle replied. “Uh…” Elle motioned upwards and outwards. “Imagine if there were no more Burgerphiles!”
Dan frowned. “But that’s still a sizable portion of my diet! I’ll starve… or at least be hungry more often.”
Elle nodded. “See! Not good.”
“Okay, okay… I’m convinced,” Dan said.
“Really…” Ash uttered. “You’re now on board just because a fast food chain is included in ‘all of society’ in regards to the shit hitting the fan and covering everyone in worst smelling reality of everything coming to a horrible end?”
Dan’s face tightened until his eyes were narrow slits and his nostrils flared. “Hey, country girl, could you kindly tell your boyfriend to ‘shut the hell up’ and let me talk with my girlfriend and possible-future-daughter without commentary?”
“Budd-Dan,” Ash corrected, “I’ve worked with some pretty lousy people in regards to saving the world, but you take the—”
“Ash,” Applejack interrupted as she dabbed a bit of ketchup from the sides of her lips, “jus’ sit a spell and be quiet. I dunno if this strange ‘future talk’ is helping the current situation, but Ah’m sure it’d go a lot faster without you buttin’ in.”
Ash took a deep breath. “Fine!” He growled out before standing up and snatching a large cup from the table. “But I’m refilling my pop while those three work out their stupid family business.”
Dan tracked Ash with his eyes as he walked by. “It’s called, soda, you slobbering excuse for a Neanderthal.” He shook his head. “You sound like a five-year-old when you call it pop.”
Pinkie giggled. “I think ‘pop’ sounds funner!”
Dan rolled his eyes. “And lamer.”
“Uh…” Elle gave her parents a nervous smile. “I can’t help but feel we’ve lost focus here.”
Dan frowned slightly. “Right… What were we talking about?”
“The end of the world?” Applejack suggested.
“No, before that!” Dan clarified. “The thing that was much more important!”
Applejack simply fired off a few silent blinks at first, then replied with, “Y’all were talking ‘bout comic book characters and how they pertained to the current situation.”
“Right, right…” Dan said.
Pinkie smiled at Applejack. “Thanks, Applejack!”
Applejack shrugged. “‘t’s what Ah’m here for.”
Elle chimed in. “Mom specifically didn’t know who Rachel Summers was and compared her to Cable.”
Dan’s teeth clamped down hard. “Oh, right…” He hissed out at he turned to glare at Pinkie. “I remember.”
Pinkie turned to give Elle a slight scowl. “Did you have to throw me under the buss like that?!”
Elle puffed out her lower lip into a pout. “But Dad used to read me Rachael Summer stories to me when I was little!” she protested. “Sorry mom, but I also have to object to you using the term” – Elle air-quoted –“‘girl-Cable’!”
“I know!” Dan exclaimed as he threw his hands up in the air. “Rachael was created several years before Liefeld’s moody anti-hero!” Dan shook his head. “Lousy populace driven storytelling…” Dan mumbled to himself. “Really, Cable is boy-Rachel Summers!” he insisted. “You’d know this if you’d done your required reading!” Dan punctuated this sentence by firing off an angry index finder in Pinkie’s direction.
Ash walked back up withholding his large soda in hand. He simply sighed at the display in front of him and took his seat behind Dan and across from Applejack. Raising a hand to his forehead, he started sipping on his soda like it was the cure to the headache he was clearly suffering from.
“Sorry!” Pinkie replied to Dan. “But it’s an awful lot of comics, and we’ve been busy…” Pinkie let out a deep sigh and turned towards Elle. “Elle, the truth is Dan and I aren’t exactly sure how to like…. Treat you, or act around you or anything really… So uh… How do you think you should be treated?”
“What?!” Dan cried in protesting tone. “She’s our quasi-child! She doesn’t get a say!”
“She’s an adult, Dan!” Pinkie stressed as she motioned to Elle. “I mean… that’s gotta entitle her to some say! I mean… What happened when you grew into an adult with your parents?”
Dan’s eyes narrowed. “It involved a lot of fires and me getting kicked out and living with my grandma for a while… This also involved quite a lot of fires. You should know this.”
“Right, right…” Pinkie said. “Sorry, I must have mentally blocked that conversation for the sake of my own sanity…”
“Well, miss ‘trying to become the parent of a possible-future-child of the year’,” Dan fired back, “what did you do when you became an adult?”
“Uh…” Pinkie pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “I guess I left my house shortly after getting my cutie mark…”
“Your parents just let you leave after you hit magic, colorful horse puberty!?” Dan cried in disbelief. “What kind of messed up society is Queen Horsey-time running over there in Cartoon Horse Planet?”
Pinkie threw her hands up in the air. “The kind where fillies usually don’t have to worry about being kidnapped, or mugged, or stabbed!” she fired back.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Dan retorted. “You ponies need a few more obstacles in your daily lives to toughen you up!”
“I’ve fought a nightmare incarnate and a chaos god!” Pinkie shrilled as she leaned across the table. “And a bunch of other things! My daily life in Equestria had plenty to toughen me up!”
Ash leaned back and turned towards Elle, leaning slightly to look past Dan. “Not that it’s any of my business, but doesn’t it bug you to see your, uh, past-parents fight like this?”
Elle smirked at Ash and shrugged. “I’m used to this!” she said cheerfully. “Heck, sometimes these two getting into arguments like this was my lullaby!”
“I’ll cut your hair!” Shouted Dan.
“I’ll scratch your face!” Retorted Pinkie.
“ I’ll bite your neck!”
“And break out the mace!”
“... Missy, you had one seriously screwed up childhood,” Ash quipped.
Elle frowned slightly. “I grew up in a crazy magic-robot apocalypse! My parents being strange was hardly my main concern!”
“Uhh, fair enough.”
She shook her head. “Anyways. they usually lose the will to fight pretty quickly and start getting all lovey-dovey…” She frowned. “I just hope they don’t start making out in front of me.”
“I’ll squeeze your cheeks!”
A smile broke Pinkie’s angry expression. “Higher or lower?” she sang out as she leaned in closer to Dan.
Dan tilted his head and smirked as he too leaned in closer. “Where do you think!?” He shouted, his lips close enough to brush against Pinkie’s.
“Then we should go slower…” Pinkie uttered in a half whisper as she slowly closed her eyes. Dan did the same.
Elle swallowed. “Oh no…”
Dan and Pinkie locked lips together and began to hum contently, but before they could somehow make an even bigger scene than the group was already making, Elle inserted her hands between the two and pushed them back into their seats. “No! Stop! Okay… Can we get back to how I should be treated?”
Clearly slightly jostled, Pinkie and Dan took a moment to refocus on the task at hand. “Uh, right…” Pinkie said. “Er, Well… Since you’re clearly more well-read on Dan’s mountain of reading material…”
“You’ve had ample time to peruse my collection!” Dan insisted.
Pinkie continued, “… How do Jean and Cyclops deal with their future kids? Er… Rachel Summers, for instance?”
Dan’s features tightened. “Don’t try to sweet talk your way back into my good graces now!”
“Uh… by not really dealing with them?” Elle said. “I mean, unless they’re forced to address it they kinda just did their own thing… Plus Jean dies and comes back a lot… That seems to take up a lot of time.”
“I told you they didn’t deal with it!” Dan exclaimed.
Pinkie let out a long sigh. “So… You don’t know what to do here?” she asked Elle.
Elle threw her hands up in the air. “No! I’ve never traveled back in time to meet my parents before! It’s not like I had a check-list prepared that could have helped me.”
Dan shook his head. “Who would do that, anyhow?”
Pinkie glanced past Dan and Ash to share a knowing glance with Applejack. The pair let out a couple quiet chuckles.
“Uh, look,” Ash said turning slightly. “This sounds kind of personal. Would you rather we gave you guys some space to talk about this?”
Dan rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. Consider it free lessons on how to deal with the huge-chinned, muscle-covered children you’re going to have with country girl there.”
Applejack’s eyes widened for a moment before her face twisted as if it was fighting back a smile at the head of an army comprised of legions of laughter. She made a sound like air escaping a perforated tire before uproarious laughter quickly and almost violently escaped her lips. Applejack shut her eyes tightly even as tears began to form in her eyes and collapsed across the booth, still laughing the entire time before she rolled off the booth and onto the floor with a heavy ‘THUD!’ “Hahahahaha-HELP-Hahahahahaha-CAN’T BREATHE!”
“Gee,” Pinkie said as she mused over Applejack’s reaction. “I wish my jokes got that kind of reaction.”
Ash glared at the empty space his girlfriend has occupied up until her giggle fit then tossed a glare up at Dan. “I think it’s a little early to be considering us having children. At least, that’s the feeling I’m currently getting.”
“Well, whatever!” Dan said dismissively. “I’m sure with all the weirdness in your life and girls with zero self-esteem you meet, you’ll screw up and bring the mistake of a child into the world.”
Pinkie let out a disbelieving gasp as Dan cringed. He turned towards Elle. “I’m sorry. I meant—“
“You meant children besides me,” Elle finished for Dan. “Yeah, I know. Er… Alternative-future-you has had to clarify that quite a few times. So, uh… Next question?”
“What the heck happened to your eye?!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“Huh?” Elle replied. She scrunched up her face and pawed at her steel-blue eye. “Is something wrong? Did I get a case of pinkeye on top of everything else?”
Pinkie smiled smugly. “I think you mean ‘Pinkie-eye’.”
Elle broke into laughter that was quickly shared by Pinkie. “Good one!” Elle said.
“Not that eye!” Dan exclaimed. “The one under your patch.”
“Oh, this…” Elle said. Elle tapped her eyepatch a couple times. “Er… I was born with it…”
Dan raised an eyebrow. “It?”
“Uh… Is it okay if we talk about something else?” Elle asked.
Chris showed up with a tray piled high with burgers, fries, and other fried snack items and placed it on the table. “How about we break for lunch!” he suggested. “Dig in!” He turned and walked off. “I’ve got two more trays just for me.”
Grins broke out across Pinkie and Elle’s faces as they quickly grabbed wrapped items from the pile and began eagerly unwrapping them. His grumpy expression returning, Dan scrutinized the pile and began picking through it.
At the table behind Dan, Ash and Applejack where having a slightly heated, if quiet conversation.
“Look, can you at least bring it up?!” Ash said in a hushed tone.
“Yer the one who keeps on bringing it up!” Applejack insisted. “Why’d ya need me to step in for ya?”
“‘Cause they actually listen to you!” Ash said. “And every time I speak up, not only do I have to deal with Snow White’s grumpiest friend!”
Pinkie swallowed a huge mouthful of burger. “Already made that joke!” she called out as Chris added two more trays piled high with food and drink containers in the center of the table, taking a seat next to Dan.
Ash’s face tightened. “And that!” he motioned behind him in Pinkie’s direction. “But everything I say gets trampled by you square dancing all over it!”
Applejack’s lips tightened into a frown. “Ah’m not altogether happy with you using my southern heritage to further your point.”
Ash held his hands up in front of him defensively. “Alright, I took it too far. I apologize. Still… is it too much to ask you at least take my side from time to time or at least not join in verbally kicking the shit out of me?”
Applejack considered this for a moment. “Ah guess I have been a tad hard on ya…”
Ash winked. “And I thought it was my job to be hard on you.”
“Hah!” Applejack cried. “I’ll try to make it feel a bit less like you’re the fightin’ everyone at the Alamo.”
“Thanks, babe. But, uh… it’s okay when you say those things, but not anyone else?”
“It’s a common reference!” Applejack insisted as she threw her hands up in the air. “You’re the one who made a big thing out of it!”
Dan grunted in displeasure as he placed an arm across the back of his bench seat and turned around. “Is there a reason this discussion between you two is interrupting me enjoying my burger?”
Ash’s forehead knitted and he motioned with both his hands towards Applejack.
Applejack sighed. “There’s some concern over at this table that all this dilly-dallyin’ is jus’ given them Deadites more opportunity to prepare for our arrival or also open a hell mouth that’ll swallow us all whole.”
Dan let out an “Ugh… Ashley just can’t sit and taste the fries for a moment?”
Applejack chuckled. “Yep. He is still bein’ a bit of a wet—”
Ash brought a fist up to his mouth and made a loud, obvious cough.
“Ah mean, ‘sure’,” Applejack said simply. “He also wanted to know if we had any sort of plan besides running face first into the ‘face f*@#in’ bullets.”
Elle took a long draw from a milkshake then set it down. “Uh, that depends…” She tilted her head to get a better look at Ash. “When Deadites possess someone, do they get access to all their memories?”
Ash turned and gave Elle a serious expression. “Yes. And they tend to use them to f*@# with your head.”
“… Well… shit,” Elle said.
Pinkie began to cough and sputter, a bit of strawberry milkshake dribbling out onto her lips.
Dan glared at Elle. “Language, young lady!”
Elle sighed. “I felt it was a good time for an expletive! That means the Deadites know about all the back and hidden entrances to the base! I don’t know how we’re going to do this stealthily.”
Dan shrugged. “So… we don’t!”
Ash frowned. “I believe something was mentioned about getting a face full of face- f*@#ing bullets?”
Dan rolled his eyes. “It’s fine!” Dan insisted. “With all the awesome people here, and also you and Chris, I’m sure we can put our collective powers and skills together to easily bum-rush through ground floor, no problem!”
-~ooooo~-
Bullets rained down from the sky like vengeful hail that destroyed cars windows and perforated their thin-metal and fiberglass bodies. This sent shards of safety glass, flecks of colorful metal, and crumbled bullets back into the air which fell back down with a light tinkling and the odd thud. Accompanying this sound was the hiss of tires releasing their pressure or even popping as assault-rifle fire effortlessly pierced rubber and kicked up asphalt. Though, all of this was a bit hard to hear over the sound of repeating gunshots cried in a chorus of unrelenting destruction the poured over the rows of abandoned cars in front of the arched columns and towering white couple-dozen story monolith of windows and white brick that was the Los Angeles Civic center.
“No problem, huh?!” Ash shouted from behind a slightly damaged silver Prius that was rapidly losing market value. Next to him, Applejack raised an assault rifle over the roof of the car and fired haphazardly in the direction of oncoming fire, the flights of stairs leading up to the Civic Center entrance where armed and armored, possibly no-longer, men took cover behind white brick walls and solid stone columns.
“Alright, shut up!” Dan shouted with a frown sitting under a pair of sunglasses as he took shelter from behind a black pick-up truck. “So I at least thought we’d make through the front door before they opened fire! This really threw off the Matrix thing I was going for!” In addition to sunglasses, Dan was now wearing a full-length trench coat, the ends of which lying in a heap at his feet crouched behind his cover.
“OooooOOOOOOooooh!” Pinkie exclaimed from next to Dan, also clad in a full length black coat and sunglasses, her shining trench coat closed around her waist and unzipped at the top, showing off a small bit of cleavage. This forced the coat to hug her figure tightly which highlighted her hourglass figure. “So that’s why you made us stop for trench coats!”
Dan nodded. “That and Elle was running around with barely a scrap of clothing left to her name! This way she’s at least covered up.”
“I’m sorry if escaping a government facility full of possessed people that are trying to kill you screws up an outfit, dad!” Elle screamed, sunglasses over her eye and eyepatch and her own black trench coat hanging loosely off her body. She stood up with her own assault-rifle and looked over the bed of the pickup truck, took aim and squeezed off a series of shots. She ducked back down as a small storm off bullets hit the other side of the truck and created a shower of sparks and flakes of black.
Pinkie cringed and looked at Elle with a look of terrified worry as Elle ducked down with Dan, Chris, and her on one side of the truck. “Could you maybe, pretty please with a cherry on top, show a little more regards for your personal safety?” Pinkie asked holding up two fingers in close proximity to each other to signify ‘a little bit’.”
Elle let out a heavy sigh. “Mom! Do you know how many times we’ve had this conversation?”
“… Once?” Pinkie offered.
Elle pursed her lips. “Well, maybe you have, but—”
The roar of a shotgun cut off the conversation as Ash ducked back down behind his cover. “Can we put a pin in that?! I think we have bigger issues to concentrate on!”
Dan nodded. “Yeah! Like why’d you bring a sawed-off shotgun to an assault rifle party!?”
Applejack grit her teeth. “Or why weren’t we told about the trench coat stop?!”
“Why’d no one tell me I should grab more ketchup?” a sunglasses and trench coat wearing Chris lamented before shoving a fistful of fries into his mouth sat next to a pile of greasy Burgerphile bags.
Ash raised his shotgun over the roof of the car and fired wildly. “I meant how three of you don’t even have guns!”
“Well, we have super powers!” Dan insisted. “Or are Chris!”
Chris fired off a glare at Dan before he buried his face in a cheeseburger containing an alarming number of patties.
“So you keep saying!” Ash said. “Perhaps NOW would be a good opportunity to use these amazing powers you refuse to shut up about!”
“Yeah, dad!” Elle exclaimed. “Throw a building at them!”
“… What!?” Dan exclaimed. “I don’t know how to do that!”
“You’ve done it before!” Elle insisted.
“That was…uh… will be…er… that might be done by alternative-future me!” Dan’s eyelids dropped and his frowned deepened as he attempted to mentally sort out the proper word structure for a sentence involving a possible future version of oneself.
“No!” Elle cried. “Past-memory-wiped-from-a-paradox-involving-me-you did it…” Elle grinned nervously. “But I can see from the look you’re giving me that now isn’t the time go over that!” A flurry of bullets ripped into the roof of the truck and took out its passenger-side window causing safety pebble sized bits of safety glass to splatter amongst those sheltering beside it. “Just… just get really mad, okay!?”
“Oh, I’m MAD!” Dan exclaimed. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate as the cacophonous noise of gunfire continued. He clenched his eyes hard and began to quiver as he let the frustration of the current situation consume him. “GHA!” he exclaimed as his eyes shot open. “How does this work!? Or am I supposed to Hulk out and pick up a building!?” Dan looked around. “Not sure if you noticed, but the buildings are really big around here!”
Elle nodded. “Yeah… I mean, I guess it just was just Casa Paradiso last time…”
“I used my house!?”
“But all our stuff is in there!” Pinkie cried.
“It got better…” Elle replied with a shrug.
Red and blue lights began to twinkle down the not so distant streets of downtown LA as a parade of police and armored vehicles made their way closer to the maelstrom of violence, adding the high-pitched wail of sirens to the maelstrom of sound surrounding the L.A. Civic Center.
Applejack piped up. “Well whatever you’re gonna do, do it quick!” she shouted. “Ah don’t think the police are gonna be too happy with us firing on a government building or buy that we’re doing it ‘cause of a rash of possessions from a secret government facility underneath!” Applejack’s eyebrows knit together. “Gosh, that sounds so stupid when Ah jus’ say it out loud like that.”
Chris quickly scarfed the partially eating burger-strosity in his hand and went back to the pile for another.
Dan closed his eyes and grit his teeth only to open his eyes once more. “Grrr! I can’t concentrate! There’s too many things to be angry about!”
Ash tossed Dan an irritated glance. “The fact that because you can’t get your super-powered shit together means we’re all going to die isn’t enough to focus on?!”
“NO!” Dan insisted. “Because that includes you, so there’s a silver lining!”
With a huff, Elle stood up. “You want something to focus on!?” She raised her assault rifle and stepped out from behind the truck. “I’ll give you something to be REALLY upset about!”
“Wha—ELLE! GET BACK HERE!” Dan demanded.
Pinkie took a short, sharp breath as she watched Elle step out into the line of fire. She tried to scream, but the sounds got caught in her throat.
Elle took aim and let loose a burst of bullets in the direction of the thunderous sound of guns being fired in, and the storm returned fire.